Over the past few years, the civics curriculum for Israeli high-schools has become the centre of a heated political debate. Following this debate, in May 2016 a revised official textbook was introduced. This paper draws on an in-depth analysis of the revised official textbook, comparing it to the previous official textbook published in 2000. The…

Critiques of traditional civic education as exclusionary toward individuals and groups that are linguistically, culturally, and age-diverse have led to critical civic education that foregrounds the experiences and assets of Communities of Color. Elementary-aged Children of Color face civic marginalization because of their multiple identities,…

A healthy democracy requires informed citizens on all sides of the political spectrum but extreme political polarization creates significant challenges. This study examines how teachers conceptualize civic education in an ideologically and racially diverse school district. Embedded within a research-practice partnership, this case offers timely…

This article examines and compares the hotly debated issue of national identity in the Taiwanese and English citizenship curricula and investigates the extent to which schoolteachers' perceptions fall in line with the written curriculum. The author describes the background to the evolution of national identity in each country. Following this…

Rendering visible African immigrants' shared and differing experiences of civic learning and action, the authors present findings from in-depth semi-structured interviews with second- and 1.5-generation African immigrants in New York City. Drawing on an interdisciplinary framework of African immigrant identities constructions and civic engagement,…

Understanding youth's perceptions of their civic skills is important for enriching the lives of youth as well as society. This study explored the relationship between civic attitudes, leadership skills, and ethnic identity in Northwest Georgia schools using two measures, the Civic Attitudes and Skills Questionnaire (CASQ) and the Multigroup Ethnic…

This report presents findings from the Asian regional module of the International Civic and Citizenship Education Study (ICCS), sponsored by the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA). ICCS studied the ways in which young people in lower-secondary schools are prepared to undertake their roles as citizens.…

Although public schools attempted to assimilate immigrant children, immigrants tended to blend American and ethnic identities. Civic education played a role by encouraging students to define American identity as commitment to broad civic ideals, including respect for diversity. (Contains 27 references.) (SK)

Since 1989, large numbers of "ethnic returnees" have settled in Germany and Japan. After the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, 2.8 million "Aussiedler," or ethnic German returnees, came to Germany from the former Soviet Union. In Japan, immigration reform driven by low-skill labor shortages induced nearly 300,000…

Describes the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) 1998 Civics Assessment. Includes average scores and achievement-level results for the United States, for demographic subgroups, and for students in a variety of contexts. Also examines the framework and content of the assessment. (Author/SLD)

In the United States and Mexico, public schooling, as a government institution, has attempted to reinforce cultural and national values explicitly through civics lessons and implicitly through attitudes and classroom management. This study shows how schools on each side of the U.S.-Mexico border attempt to teach distinct national and cultural…

Charts the intellectual history of competing conceptions of national unity, diversity, and ethnic identity. Explicates three models: monolithic integration (monocultural assimilation of diversity), pluralistic preservation (diversity and unity as equal values), and pluralistic integration (stressing consensus about core civic values while…

This article addresses the democratic rhetoric taught in a Costa Rican High School and the ways in which that rhetoric clashed with school practices that revealed hierarchies based on race, ethnicity, class, and religion. This contradiction was rendered visible through student elections, the Independence Day celebration, and civic acts. Through…

The future of civic education in the United States must be examined within the changing social context of the structure of U.S. society and the directions toward which that society is moving. The underlying, shared dimensions of the theoretical analysis of society must be examined to understand that context and discover those directions of change.…

Argues that the United States always has possessed a unified political culture (representative democracy defined by compromise and consensus) and a fragmented ethnic and social culture. Claims that concerns about the divisive effect of multicultural education confuse the two realms. Suggests some curriculum topics that address both ideas. (MJP)